TRUMP: the influencer President?

In 2016 I wrote an article about how then candidate Donald Trump had used the influence and reach of social media to bypass the media and create a movement of followers online and in the community. In 2018, now President Trump has applied his social media acumen to foreign policy with shocking results. So what precedent has Trump set for the next generation of leaders?

On January 2017 the world witnessed the swearing-in of a billionaire real-estate mogul and reality TV star as President of the United States of America. Trump was the first President in the history of the United States to have neither served in the military or held political office.

Love him or loath him, Donald Trump has had an enormous influence on the political and media landscape by utterly devastating the status quo.

Pundits that derided Trump as a ‘celebrity president’ had failed to see the almost decade-long strategy he and his team implemented to grow his online following that propelled him into the political stratosphere. Take for example the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), a popular event for republican presidential hopefuls held every year. Except in 2016, Trump has addressed the CPAC faithful every year, finetuning his messaging and growing his conservative followers. It’s important to understand that in his 2011 CPAC address Trump first road-tested a version of the ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan to rapturous applause from the audience. Less than five years latter he’d use that same slogan to galvanise the Republican base and take the White House.

Since his first CPAC appearance, Trump, knowingly or unknowingly, has disseminated his key campaign messages by adopting the same social media playbook that many young so-called ‘social media influencers’ have used to build enormous followings. Those who can remember the early days of YouTube will remember how young, relatively inexperienced ‘YouTubers’ were able use their social media platforms to directly engage their followers in ways that hadn’t been seen before – growing their influence and reach among many young people to such an extent their fame began to rival some of Hollywood’s movie stars.

By adapting this raw and direct method of engagement, Trump was able to completely flip the old, out-dated media business model on its head. Political pundits and opponents were left scrambling to adjust to this new form of direct messaging. Many of Trump’s GOP primary foes were still caught in the past. They were utilising cookie cutter campaigns which bogged them down with the same romanticism of West Wing style presidential campaigning that the public had come to view as manufactured and fake.

Trump on the other hand opted to use Twitter and phone-in media appearances to get his message out. Long-winded press statements were replaced by short, sharp and often grammatically incorrect tweets that cut to the point. Trump was communicating in the same way many Americans had become accustomed.

Before Trump, Barack Obama was hailed as the first social media president. But was that true? Obama’s team were the primary drivers behind his digital strategy. Each Tweet or Facebook post was carefully crafted and vetted to ensure no particular electoral demographic was offended. This left Obama’s tweets sterile and unengaging. After becoming president, Obama rarely tweeted or posted directly to social media. Unless it was campaign season, most Americans could only hear from the president through mainstream media outlets or via scripted YouTube videos encouraging them to signup for a healthcare plan. Direct tweets from Obama became so infrequent that engagement via the @BarackObama and official @POTUS Twitteraccounts fell off a cliff. Now compare that to the tweets coming from the @RealDonaldTrump account. For better or worse, I doubt anyone would argue those tweets aren’t authentic.

You can certainly question the substance of the online messaging coming from Trump, but you cannot ignore that fact that he has set a new standard for leaders to directly engage with their followers. From Hollywood to Wall Street and to Washington D.C., leaders are waking up to the new notion of ‘digital influencers’. Picking up where Trump left off, movie stars like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Will Smith and Kevin Hart have invested heavily in growing their online influence. Smith for instance has dived headfirst into social media by launching his own YouTube series to compete with the new breed of young internet stars. To-date he has amassed over 4 million followers on YouTube alone. In the world of business, titans like Elon Musk and Gary Vaynerchuk have been able to leverage their own online influence to outpace their competitors and establish trust in the market.

We are now witnessing the rise of the political and industry influencer: individuals who use social media to build an audience of followers capable of being mobilised online and in the community to achieve an objective.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily endorsing the use of Twitter to conduct foreign policy. Trump’s untested foreign policy social media tactics are certainly a highwire act with enormous consequences. However, ignoring the substance, the strategy he is implementing is sound. In today’s world of influencers, it isn’t hard to imagine an Oprah Winfrey or even Will Smith leveraging their online influence to leapfrog establishment politicians in order to run for high office.

Matt Versi is the Chief Digital Strategist for digital media group, ImpaQmedia. Matt has worked across both the government and private sector advising organisations and industry leaders on their digital strategy, influencer branding and content creation capabilities. Find out more by visting impaq.media.

Categories

The Australian Business Executive (The ABE) provides an in-depth view of business and economic development issues taking place across the country. Featuring interviews with top executives, government policy makers and prominent industry bodies The ABE examines the news beyond the headlines to uncover the drivers of local, state, and national affairs.

All copy appearing in The Australian Business Executive is copyrighted. Reproduction in whole or part is not permitted without written permission. Any financial advice published in The Australian Business Executive or on TheABE.com.au has been prepared without taking in to account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any reader. Neither The Australian Business Executive nor the publisher nor any of its employees hold any responsibility for any losses and or injury incurred (if any) by acting on information provided in this magazine. All opinions expressed are held solely by the contributors and are not endorsed by The Australian Business Executive or TheABE.com.au.

All reasonable care is taken to ensure truth and accuracy, but neither the editor nor the publisher can be held responsible for errors or omissions in articles, advertising, photographs or illustrations. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome but cannot be returned without a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher is not responsible for material submitted for consideration.

I agree to TheABE.tv's Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Video Services Policy, and understand that TheABE.tv may share information about me to marketing partners that may contact me via email or otherwise about their products or services. I will receive a complimentary subscription to The Australian Business Executive and newsletters.